Big Boned

Book excerpt: Can she be herself in a one-size-fits-all world? Lori Palmer is the new girl at Bay Water High, where students prize glossy hair, “beach” bodies, and thigh gaps above all else, which is so not her. She misses her old school, where her artistic talent was more important to her peers than a chia smoothie recipe ever was. Uncomfortable in her own size-sixteen skin, Lori decides to survive senior year as best she can by blending into the background while she melts in the summer heat. But her plans go completely awry when she discovers popular jock Jake volunteering at her brother Zac’s school. When her brother befriends Jake’s sister, Lori is suddenly thrust into Jake’s unfamiliar world of water polo, parties, and stargazing. As she grows closer to Jake, and her relationship with her mother starts to deteriorate, Lori’s old anxieties resurface and she throws herself into her art. It’s a wildly new direction for Lori, and through it she realizes that finding her voice might get her into a world of trouble, but standing up for what she believes in is as important as standing up for herself.